“It may have not been the right way to do it, I don’t know,” Giguere said after practice Tuesday. “Bottom line is, we could say we’ll wait until next year, and start over next year, start a new season and all that, or we can do something about it now.

“We know we’re going to have the same group, essentially the same players, so why not try to change that mentality, that culture, right now?”

Giguere took the loss Monday against the Flames and is the scheduled starter Wednesday at Anaheim and Thursday at Los Angeles as the Avs begin their final nine-game stretch with starting goalie Semyon Varlamov shelved with a hip injury. The Avs are on a five-game losing streak, have won only twice in 15 games and are last in the 30-team NHL with 29 points.

After Monday’s game, Giguere said the players don’t understand how to play defense and he is tired of hearing about some guys’ offseason plans.

“Some guys are more worried about their Vegas trip at the end of the season than playing the games, than playing every minute of the games,” he said. “Quite frankly, I don’t care about your Vegas trip right now.”

Giguere said he has been at the boiling point lately, whether he is playing or on the bench, backing up Varlamov.

“If I didn’t play last night, you guys wouldn’t have talked to me, but I think I would have been just as frustrated. It’s been frustrating watching. It’s frustrating being part of it,” he said. “Even though you’re the back up (goalie), you do have a role, you do have a say, you can try to be a leader, and I’m not the one to sit silently in the dressing room and not talk about stuff.”

Giguere won a Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in separate seasons with the Anaheim Ducks. Along with Avs veteran winger Milan Hejduk, he is the most accomplished player on the team.

“I don’t want them to respect me for the past. I want them to respect me for who I am today. I said what I say and that’s just the way it went,” Giguere said.

Nobody seems to be complaining.

“I liked it,” Matt Duchene said. “I hoped everyone saw it. Obviously he let his emotions get the best of him, but sometimes that’s a good thing. I was a fan of it. That’s one example of what might be going on with some guys, but the biggest thing is, we can’t be looking for an easy way out. The hard way out is getting better every day as a team and as an individual, and that’s what we owe to ourselves, each other and to our fans. What Jiggy said hopefully grabbed the attention over everyone.

“And if there’s any guy in here who can say that, it’s him. It’s good that he’s upset. There’s other guys in here who are upset as well. This is not fun.”

Said defenseman Erik Johnson: “He said it in the heat of the moment and he’s an emotional guy. When you lose, these things happen. In my opinion, he’s a veteran guy and can say what he wants.”

Added Hejduk, who is scheduled to return from a shoulder injury Thursday: “Probably the message is, what he tried to say, is stay in the present, the season isn’t over, there’s still nine games left . I didn’t read it. I heard it. Definitely in tough times like this, when you’re in a losing streak, your mind sometimes shifts to somewhere else.”

Sacco said he expects that kind of leadership from Giguere, who received a one-year extension last summer to keep him under contract through next season.

Meanwhile, Sacco said center Paul Stastny will return from a nagging foot injury Tuesday against the Ducks, and Sami Aittokallio has been called up from the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League to serve as Giguere’s backup during the California trip.

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